a bunch of alt-country stuff by the likes of Junior Brown and BR5-49
Care to specify? I was listening to a lot of "y'all-ternative" back then and would be curious to know what caught your attention. Bottle Rockets? Old 97s? Scud Mountain Boys? Backsliders? I liked both of the acts you named back then, but as time passed the novelty side of their acts came more to the fore (see also: Southern Culture on the Skids who made no bones about their tongue-in-cheek side), despite the fact that they could play like mofos.
back then I got my alt-country from Sully Roddy's late lamented Sunday night shows (first on KSAN, then on KNEW). The Mavericks were huge faves, obviously, and Steve Earle. Also:
'95"8 Feet High", Stacey Dean Campbell
"Hello Cruel World", George Ducas
'96"A Real Country Song", Dale Watson
"Blue", LeAnne Rimes (yes, her first single, when she was channeling Patsy Cline and Brenda Lee, before she started doing Diane Warren crap)
"Planet of Love", Mandy Barnett
"Corpus Christi Bay", Johnny Rodriguez (from his comeback album,
You Can Say That Again, covering the likes of Lucinda Williams, Dave Alvin, and Robert Earle Keen -- a real find if it's still in print)
'97"Every Kind of Music", Robert Shafer/Don Dixon
"Inner Redneck", Red Meat
"Every River", Kim Richey
"If My Broken Heart Would Ever Mend", Prairie Oyster
"When Losers Rule The World", the Cicadas (a band featiring Rodney Crowell that sounded to my ears like a countrified Rockpile)
"I Still Havent Found What I'm Looking For" (yes, the U2 song, in a bluegrass cover by a woman who sounds a lot like Alison Krauss)